I love Bilal's work, but somehow hate this movie. It is just so out of place. A clean three dimensional animation.. of the story. Movie and book are so fare apart, although made by the same person!

Anyway, I saw this version in 2006 and recently back on a Two Disk Special Edition. To say, that Bilal should of let an other director direct this movie, Would be right. Obviously the movie suffered and failed because of it.

It failed to capture the raw feel and spirit of the comics. You have to remember that the story was conceived somewhere in the late '70's, and the sign of that time seems to have been filtered out. That is to bad. Now it feels a bit empty, adding an late 90's interpretation to it. Physically it also feels superficial, even though they had a budget of over 20 million to play with. Same with the dialogs, they don't feel right. There is no dynamic. Horus's voice for instance is an serious annoyance, and really badly cast. The rest of the acting cast though is great. It is just to bad the scripted dialog's aren't helping them.

Technically they did a lot of great work on this project but frankly, most of it doesn't work visually. For example, the use of CGI for the characters was absolutely unnecessary. Great achievement, but not as effect in this film. It is a bit childish in style ..so uncool though cold. It also lacks physical weight, reality and rawness the comics have. Something an great make-up artist could have given it.

Again, the whole film looks so synthetic and empty, while the book feels more organic and filled with so much warm detail, even open in a curtain way. After all, these are all some of the major defining elements of Bilal's style.

Nonetheless, I still think the story is an source for an great movie. Although the Egyptian elements may be out of interest or out of time(..), and a lot of pieces are already stolen by other directors and movies. The world of Bilal and his style are still very interesting. There is so much more to the story, then what we see in this movie. If you see how physical additions to the body are becoming common place in society, you can still see the relevance. Lots of angles to be explored here.

Maybe a American commercial remake a-la Ridley..?( He is a big fan of Bilal's work) Or Besson, to keep it French, maybe Guillermo Del Toro..

All in all, if you are a fan you have to see this or try to get trough. Just remember, the movie is nothing like the comics. They rock!